more on this theme | more from this thinker
Full Idea
The doctor says "If the patient is still alive in the morning, change the dressing". As a truth-functional command this says "Make it that either the patient is dead in the morning, or change the dressing", so the nurse kills the patient.
Gist of Idea
Doctor:'If patient still alive, change dressing'; Nurse:'Either dead patient, or change dressing'; kills patient!
Source
Dorothy Edgington (Conditionals (Stanf) [2006], 5)
Book Ref
'Stanford Online Encyclopaedia of Philosophy', ed/tr. Stanford University [plato.stanford.edu], p.29
A Reaction
Isn't philosophy wonderful?
Related Idea
Idea 14305 In the truth-functional account a burnt-up match was soluble because it never entered water [Carnap]
| 14270 | Simple indicatives about past, present or future do seem to form a single semantic kind [Edgington] |
| 14269 | Maybe forward-looking indicatives are best classed with the subjunctives [Edgington] |
| 14274 | Inferring conditionals from disjunctions or negated conjunctions gives support to truth-functionalism [Edgington] |
| 14271 | Non-truth-functionalist say 'If A,B' is false if A is T and B is F, but deny that is always true for TT,FT and FF [Edgington] |
| 14272 | I say "If you touch that wire you'll get a shock"; you don't touch it. How can that make the conditional true? [Edgington] |
| 14273 | Conditional Proof is only valid if we accept the truth-functional reading of 'if' [Edgington] |
| 14276 | The truth-functional view makes conditionals with unlikely antecedents likely to be true [Edgington] |
| 14275 | Truth-function problems don't show up in mathematics [Edgington] |
| 14278 | Truth-functionalists support some conditionals which we assert, but should not actually believe [Edgington] |
| 14282 | On the supposition view, believe if A,B to the extent that A&B is nearly as likely as A [Edgington] |
| 14281 | A thing works like formal probability if all the options sum to 100% [Edgington] |
| 14284 | Conclusion improbability can't exceed summed premise improbability in valid arguments [Edgington] |
| 14287 | Does 'If A,B' say something different in each context, because of the possibiites there? [Edgington] |
| 14290 | Doctor:'If patient still alive, change dressing'; Nurse:'Either dead patient, or change dressing'; kills patient! [Edgington] |